


Another Key

by You_Light_The_Sky



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Advent Children Spoilers, Angst, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Original game spoilers, Reincarnation AU, Semi-Alternate Universe, Tifaweek, tifaweek2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24136825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/You_Light_The_Sky/pseuds/You_Light_The_Sky
Summary: AU. Cloud has always been haunted by dreams of another life, another Cloud Strife with mako eyes who fights with a sword and yearns for this dream girl who keeps slipping through his fingers. When he gets discharged by the military, he can’t seem to find himself… until he hears a familiar piano. COMPLETEModern AU with reincarnation themes.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 73
Kudos: 213





	1. Another Cloud

**Author's Note:**

> Late, but inspired by Day 3 of Tifa Week’s prompt: “I’ll never be perfect, but at least now I’m brave. Now my heart is open and I can finally breathe.” brand new me by alicia keys.
> 
> Spoilers for Advent Children and the original FF7 game. I’m pretty obsessed with reincarnation themes so… this weird piece is what came out of my brain. It’s… kind of sad, kind of not, but mostly sad. Part 1 is about Cloud and Part 2 is about Tifa. It’s definitely not my greatest work, it could definitely be explored more, but I’m really tired of glaring at it. Everything I want to explore with Reincarnation will just have to be saved for another story XD Please be patient with me and enjoy!
> 
> Last chapter will be posted Friday.

There’s a girl falling down the stairs, her chest blotted with blood, her wine-red eyes wide and dead.

There’s a guy with the best smile, dragging him across the sand, before he’s shot and dead and gone and _no, Zack, you can’t leave, please don’t—_

There’s a metal plate that falls on thousands of innocent lives—

There’s a thing floating in a tube, disfigured and terribly alive—

There’s a girl in pink being skewered by a sword—

There’s a meteor—

There’s dead—

There’s disease—

And then—

:

Cloud wakes, but the waking world is just as terrifying.

:

He doesn’t know how to live in a world without war. When he signed up to be in the military, straight out of high school, he did it because the government promised to pay his tuition fees, promised to take care of his mother, and Cloud wanted to be _something_ , to be _useful_. He ignored the hollow feeling in his gut, like something was missing, a certain smile, a certain kindness, a certain song that always plays in his dreams until he watches a little girl fall from the mountains. He had no friends, no one but his mom, and nothing to lose.

Why not give his body to the military?

Now he’s here, deadweight, discharged with only one flesh leg and one prosthetic leg. His mother stares at him with fret and pity, and Cloud doesn’t know how to talk to her. Her hovering is suffocating. Her presence makes his skin crawl, he remembers a dream where she wasn’t there at all, taken by a fire, and he snaps at her.

His mother doesn’t try to wake him during his nightmares again.

:

“ _You kept your promise…_ ” he keeps seeing her face at night, smiling and bleeding out, “ _You’re here…_ ”

He wonders when he’ll stop dreaming of this other world, and when he’ll stop crying about it.

:

Claudia Strife pushes Cloud to find work, manages to find him a job as a janitor in the Music Department at the local university. The work is tedious and slow, but at least Cloud can do it with his prosthetic on and the students ignore him. He doesn’t have to think about distant countries at war, or crumpled up bodies of children, or friends shouting at him not to run into the line of fire. He doesn’t have to think about dreams about madmen bent on eating the planet or the blood on his hands when he fails the girl with wine-red eyes.

And everything is fine.

:

“Just who is ‘Tifa’ dear?” his mother asks one day.

Cloud stiffens at the door, just about to leave. “Where did you hear that name?” It’s _hers_. The girl with wine-red eyes. Hers, hers, hers…

“I heard you mumbling her name when you were sleeping. Is she someone you met at work?”

Ah.

“No,” Cloud mumbles. “She’s no one.”

How can he possibly meet a dream from another life?

:

The first time Cloud meets Zack, he nearly runs into a flag pole, shocked by the familiar face from his dreams. But modern-Zack, this world’s Zack, only laughs and helps him up, no indication of remembering another world with mako and monsters, that Cloud says nothing.

Cloud willingly goes along with Zack when Zack invites him to a few sessions at the VA, just to know him, just to see the differences between both Zacks.

Both Zacks are still incredibly kind.

:

He wonders what happened to Marlene and Denzel after he died.

He wonders if the first Zack, dream-Zack, ever had regrets about those he left behind.

Not like he can ask this world’s Zack.

:

“You really like swords, huh,” Zack notes when he sees Cloud looking up various sword designs, searching for any possibility that this world was once the dream world. No such luck. As if humans in this world could ever lift such giant swords.

“I guess.”

Zack studies him carefully.

The next day, he signs himself and Cloud up for kendo classes and Cloud doesn’t argue.

:

Aerith appears next, introduced as Zack’s new girlfriend. The way Zack and Aerith both look at each other, with devotion and pure bliss, makes Cloud’s heart hurt and relax all at once, as if this is how things should always be.

She’s alive, she’s here, and yet she’s not. She’s not the dream-Aerith, but another Aerith entirely, and she doesn’t seem to _know_ either.

Cloud wishes them the best and excuses himself because of ‘illness.’

It’s not technically a lie.

:

“What’s happening?” Cloud asks himself, after hours of googling his symptoms, wondering if he’s mad, if he should be locked up. But he’s not a danger to anyone, technically.

But what if he starts to blur the lines between reality and dream, what if he hurts someone like how dream-Cloud betrayed his friends by handing over the black materia? What if this world is a dream too? And Cloud isn’t real? What if dream-Cloud is the real one, dreaming this world up?

Is any of this real?

:

He throws himself into his work, furiously mopping up any speck of dust he sees, throws himself into training at kendo, misses his VA meetings, avoids being in the same space as his mother. Don’t get attached, he tells himself, at Zack’s concern and his mother’s worries. Don’t get attached…

:

“ _I believe in you, Cloud_ ,” she says, when dream-Cloud doesn’t know what to do, when he wants to run away, when he’s afraid. “ _You can do it._ ”

:

“…Hey Zack,” Cloud asks numbly, after getting his ass handed to him during kendo.

Eyes lighting up at Cloud actually initiating conversation, Zack sits by him. “What’s up, buddy?”

“Do you ever think it’s all pointless?”

Zack’s eyes widen. “What do you mean? Cloud, are you doing alright? Do you need anything?”

The concern is as overwhelming as his mother’s.

“Never mind,” Cloud pushes him away, because he doesn’t deserve it, because it’s a pointless question anyways.

“Cloud,” Zack calls after him, “we’re here for you. Me and Aerith, whenever you want to talk. You’re not alone.”

But isn’t he, if he’s the only one who remembers?

:

If he dies… will he wake up in the next life with two sets of memories? Will he be more alone?

:

Cloud doesn’t want to die, per say. Dying is painful and lonely. He would know, lying there on the battlefield, screaming because of his missing leg. In that moment all he wanted to do was survive.

But he doesn’t exactly want to live either, not with the memories in his head. So he just exists, waiting for the inevitable. What else is there to do?

:

And then he hears it.

This melody, something _she_ used to play at Seventh Heaven, in the days after geostigma, to try and cheer up the children. It was her own song that she made, a lullaby to sing for them, about feathers and hope and everything in between.

Dream-Cloud never told her that he recorded it on his PHS, that he’d listen on the stairway, that he treasured that song. He never told her so many things.

No one in this world knows that song. Cloud is sure of it. He drops his mop, abandoning his cart of cleaning supplies in the men’s bathroom and rushes down the hallway of music rooms, counting down the numbers, trying to find that sound.

The melody rises, soaring through the air, like a string tugging along at his heart. He hears it from an open music room, the oldest one that hardly any students use because of the antique piano that hasn’t been replaced yet, still so very out of tune. The dissonance of the notes being plunked somehow make the melody more resonant, alive, and _real_.

Even the door to this music room is broken, unable to close all the way because of rusty hinges, never replaced yet either. Without hesitation, Cloud flings the door open, needing to know where and _who_ that _sound_ is coming from.

The keys, the notes, stop as the door clunks against the wall and Cloud’s eyes meet with hers.

She has brown eyes in this life, rarely do people have red eyes in this world. Her hair is shorter than it was in the Dream, just below her shoulders. She still looks as beautiful as he remembers, even in a red hoodie and shorts.

“Tifa…” the name slips out, even though he knows she won’t know him. Just like this world’s Zack. Just like this world’s Aerith. He’s going to scare her off and then he’ll never see her again, not that he should. She won’t be the same as his Tifa, it will hurt to be around her, _he knows this but—_

Impossibly, her lips tremble. “Cloud…”

His eyes widen.

“You know me…”

Tifa flinches, suddenly pushing herself away from the piano. “I… I have to go!”

She’s running, shoulder crashing against his chest as she rushes out the door, that mere touch paining him. No, no, she can’t go!

Cloud runs after her.

:

“ _Words aren’t the only way to show someone how you feel_.”

:

“Tifa!” he shouts, chasing her out the doors and around the corner. “Tifa, just wait, _please!_ ”

“Leave me alone, Cloud!”

“ _No!_ ” The other Cloud, dream-Cloud, might have let her run because of guilt. But this him, this Cloud is so tired of letting guilt stop him from reaching out, of letting dream-Cloud’s guilt leak into his life. He wants to move on, he wants to get a better job, he wants to laugh and hang out with Zack and Aerith, he wants to make his mother proud.

He wants to hold Tifa.

His hands brush against hers, and he finally manages to grab her.

Twisting, Tifa scowls, “Let go!”

“Tell me why.”

Tifa stares at him with bewilderment, a refreshing anger he rarely saw directed towards him. Dream-Tifa kept so many things inside herself, all wound up in pain. Dream-Cloud never knew how to save her.

“What do you mean _why_?! I’ve been trying to forget. I’ve been trying to live _this life_. I have to take care of my little sister and brother and I don’t have time to _feel_ things for you again, to feel trapped—”

“I’m sorry,” he has to let her know that. “You died, all of you died, and I wasn’t there, and it was my fault. And I’m so _sorry_ , but please. I can’t just forget. I need you.”

Tifa freezes. “That wasn’t your… Oh what does it matter?! I’m not that Tifa anymore. I’m can’t be strong like her. I’m just _me_ now!”

“And I’m not that Cloud.”

Her breath stutters.

He steps closer. “I’m not that Cloud. And I don’t need you to be strong. I just need _you_.”

For a moment, she looks like she’ll crumple, like she’ll throw her arms around him and all will be okay. But she steps away. “I’m sorry. But I _can’t_.”

She leaves before he can chase her back.

:

He remembers how he died. He remembers a third attempt, by more greedy men, to resurrect Sephiroth. He remembers throwing himself into the darkness alone, without his friends, because of his stupid ego, he remembers Sephiroth making him watch as he skewered off each precious friend’s head.

He remembers Tifa fighting back to the last. He remembers Tifa reaching for him before she died.

He remembers such terrible regret.

:

“ _People have so many things pent up inside of themselves… so many things that they can never forget_ …”

:

“Mom?” he asks in a quiet voice.

His mother blinks at him. “What is it, dear?”

“How did you move on from Dad? How did you stop feeling the guilt?”

Her jaw almost drops in surprise at the question, at him talking to her at all, and he curses himself for being wrapped up in Dream-Cloud’s pain. But before he can murmur any apologies, her countenance melts, and she opens up her arms in a silent invitation.

A week ago, Cloud would have turned away and locked himself in his room. Today, he lets himself hug her, he lets himself feel thankful she’s alive and not dead.

“Oh Cloud,” she whispers in his ear, “healing takes time.”

“…How do I change, how do I be better?”

“Honey,” she turns to look him in the eye, “You’re already better with every day that you get back up again and try. There is no straight line. You just keep going.”

:

He calls Zack and asks him for a talk.

He tells him everything about the war, about how he got his injury, about having no purpose after he got discharged from the military, about Tifa, about the other world, the Dream-World called Gaia.

Zack doesn’t laugh or call him crazy or give him pity. He only gets up to give him a hug and Cloud thinks… _ah, this is what I was afraid to do._

How strange to be afraid of the things that make life better.

:

He lingers by the old music room, cleans it up the best he can when she’s not there. He replaces the door so she can properly lock it and hires a tuner to fix up the antique piano.

When she comes in the next Friday to practise, he leaves her be but sits by the door, listening.

 _Your playing is beautiful,_ he leaves the note under the door.

He doesn’t wait to see if she reads it.

:

“Make any progress with Tifa?” Zack asks during kendo.

Cloud grimaces.

“I’m guessing that’s a ‘no’ then. Need to bounce off any wooing ideas?”

“…I think she wants to be left alone.” Cloud doesn’t want to push her, afraid he’ll scare her off. This world is very different from the dream one. He’d hate to get a restraining order, hence why he’s curbed down the impulse to follow her, only letting himself listen to her music practise. Her songs are as soothing as they were in the Dream-World. Thanks to them, he hasn’t had any nightmares lately.

“Yikes. You really upset her. At this rate, you’ll never get to make up with her.”

“…I’m fine with just knowing she’s okay.”

He’s not. He wants to be with her desperately, but… he understands part of her fear. Didn’t he have an existential crisis about whether his reality was true or not? Ironic that meeting Tifa, knowing she remembers everything, makes him sure that this world is real… but Tifa meeting him makes her afraid that he doesn’t see the current her.

(He does. He’d like to. It’s… complicated.)

Zack frowns. “I don’t think you are. Maybe you should try talking to her again.”

“I’m not scaring her off.”

“Well, isn’t it normal to be afraid? I can’t relate to this past life thing but maybe she thinks you won’t like the person she’s become now. A lot of stuff’s probably happened to her. I mean look at you, went through a war and came out missing a leg and everything.”

Cloud stares at him. “You know… sometimes you’re pretty observant.”

“You mean _all the time_. Hey, is that a rare smile I see? Oh my god, the world is ending. I need to snap a pic, Aerith will never believe me. Hey, don’t start frowning now, I can see you secret-laughing!”

He forgot what it felt like to laugh.

:

By the fourth Friday, Tifa opens the door to the music room and she wordlessly gestures for him to come in. In that moment, Cloud stands frozen and numb, thinking that this is too good to be true, before he follows.

There’s a chair set up beside the piano bench. Tifa has already sat down.

“Don’t,” she says as soon as he sits. “Just… don’t say anything for now. Let’s just be in the moment.”

There are so many things he wants to ask her, so many things he wants to say. Beg for her to talk to him, hold her, kiss her. But this is her turf, her comfort space. He won’t defile that.

“…Okay,” he swallows.

Tifa slumps down, looking so wound up and fragile. But before Cloud can ask, she hardens her resolves, places her hands against the piano… and she plays.

Her playing is like nothing he’s ever heard from her before. Dream-Tifa’s playing was always hopeful, with a tinge of melancholy. She avoided sad songs, preferring to use the bar’s piano to lighten the mood or sing happy birthday. This Tifa plays with wild abandon, like she’s fighting a war. The keys rumble under her, crying out with an untold story.

Cloud listens and listens. The music flows out, all notes that he’s unfamiliar with, nothing from this world or the Dream-World’s.

It isn’t until he sees her tears that he dares to touch her hand, that he dares to get her to stop.

Tifa shakes, looking away from him, refusing to show her tears.

Cloud thinks of what Zack, what his mother would do. He thinks of what Dream-Cloud would _want_ to do, but would rarely dare try.

The current Cloud doesn’t think.

He does what he’s wanted to since the first moment he saw her, and he just holds her.

She stiffens, and he fears that she’ll push him away ( _please don’t push me away_ ) when she relaxes into his hold. Slowly, he tightens his grip, breathing in her scent, feeling her hair against his cheeks.

“It’s okay…” he whispers, to her surprise, “It’s going to be okay.”

Her tears haunt him for the rest of the evening.

:

“…I’m sorry,” she murmurs into his chest, “for running away before. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have explained. You’re probably just as confused and angry as I am.”

“I wasn’t angry. Not at you.” Then he thinks of what she’s trying to say. “If you mean… about the dreams? I don’t feel angry about how I died. Just… guilty. So goddamned guilty.”

She pulls away for a moment to look him in the eye in wonder. “Now I really know you’ve changed. Old Cloud wouldn’t have admitted that so easily. Or so freely.”

“…I’ve had a lot of time to think.” Twenty-seven years in a second life with a war and a mother and two best friends will do that to a guy.

Tifa grimaces. “So have I.”

“…You said you were angry?”

“Not at you,” she says quickly. “It’s not your fault what happened. I hope you know that.”

He… still has trouble processing the guilt for that. But he appreciates the thought.

“I’m angry at myself. For not being careful enough. For not being able to protect Marlene and Denzel. _He killed them first_ , and I could only watch. And then I was born again, I couldn’t even rest in the lifestream with you and Aerith and the others. I was here and _alone_. And I was so angry.”

Cloud stares at her in wonder. “What happened?”

“I haven’t been dealt the best of cards in this life, Cloud. My birth parents are… awful people. They aren’t the same people they were in our first life. I moved out, tried to get a music degree… and then I met them again. Marlene and Denzel, begging on the street… I had to take them in, even if it meant delaying all my plans. I had to get angry again or I wouldn’t be able to protect them.”

“I don’t understand why you had to run from me, Tifa. I could help…”

“Cloud, I can’t make you my number one priority anymore. Not in this life. Marlene and Denzel are everything to me. They give me a reason to smile. And I… I don’t know how to be me anymore without the anger. I don’t think I can do it.”

He thinks about the Dream-Tifa who sought revenge on Shinra by joining Avalanche. Dream-Cloud never asked her what her life was like after Nibelheim burned, he never asked her how hard it was to survive in Midgar at sixteen years old, he never asked her how she came to own a bar or gain Dream-Barret’s respect. There must have been so much anger in Dream-Tifa but she always kept it in for her customers and for Avalanche, she always gave them the face of hope.

But in the beginning, she always needed anger to survive.

“…Do you think that I won’t stay if you’re angry?”

Tifa gives a bitter smile. “Isn’t that why you stayed with her?”

Dream-Tifa was always so gentle with Dream-Cloud, so patient and forgiving. She rarely yelled at him, and if she did, she didn’t explain her feelings. It was both merciful and painful. Dream-Cloud held her to a pedestal and never tried to see underneath.

“He stayed because he loved her. And I… I’m staying because I love you too.”

Tifa’s gaze becomes stony. “You don’t know me anymore.”

“You don’t know me anymore either.”

Tifa shakes her head, the tears coming back. “Why are you like this _now?_ Why are you being so good and patient? I don’t deserve it anymore, I couldn’t protect them, I’m not _her_ anymore—”

“Maybe,” Cloud whispers against her, “the old Tifa was always like this. Maybe the old Tifa got tired of hiding. Maybe the old Cloud needed to grow some more, but he didn’t have enough time. Maybe you _do_ deserve this, because it seems like you’ve been suffering all along…”

She half-laughs, half-cries. “I can’t be weak again, Cloud.”

“…It’s not weak to cry.” He reverently wipes away the tear from her eye.

She hums. “…You’re good at this.”

“Hm?”

“Comforting people.”

“…I learned from the best,” he thinks of Zack and his Mom, “and… I think I’m only good when I’m with you.”

“…I’m not going to be as patient with you anymore.”

“Then I’ll be patient with you.”

“I work so many jobs, I won’t have as much time with you.”

“I’ll wait.”

“I have to take care of Marlene and Denzel first.”

“I’ll take care of them with you.”

“…Cloud?”

“Hm?”

“Why do you think we’re here? Why do you think we remember? Wouldn’t it be less cruel if we were living our own lives?”

He used to think that the guilt was the thing holding his memories from his first life here. And now that he’s met Tifa again, he thinks it’s true. The first Aerith and the first Zack, they didn’t have regrets. They fell into the lifestream together, and hopefully defeated Sephiroth for good after the first Cloud and the first Tifa died. This world’s Aerith and Zack have no reason to remember.

But now he thinks… that without the guilt, Cloud wouldn’t have opened himself up to this Zack or his Mom. He would have repeated his cycle of internal hate. Without the anger, Tifa wouldn’t have survived an abusive household, she wouldn’t have found this world’s Marlene and Denzel.

“Do you believe in second chances?” Cloud whispers.

Tifa laughs, a numb impression of the laugh she used to have. “I don’t think I’m allowed to be happy, Cloud.”

He pulls away, holds her face between his hands and whispers, “Yes you are. You _always_ are. And if you don’t believe in that, I’ll believe it for you.”

He’s not letting go of her again. He’s not going to ruin this chance.

Slowly, quietly, Tifa puts her hand against his, and she closes her eyes.

“Alright. I’ll try. For you, I’ll try.”

It’s all he can ask for.

:

_“Do you think the stars can hear us fighting for them?”_

:

Getting to know Tifa again is strange and familiar all at once. She still parts her hair the same way, and her smile when she talks about the kids is as kind as ever. When she scolds people for littering and making Cloud’s job harder, he sees the Dream-Tifa who didn’t tolerate injustice.

Yet, she looks more weary of the world, closing in on herself whenever strangers walk too close. He doesn’t remember the Dream-Tifa ever looking so tired, but maybe she always did… always hiding it from Dream-Cloud.

He likes how much more vibrant she gets when she plays piano and how excited she is when he brings her bubble tea. These little things that spark joy and make her alive, instead of just surviving, they hammer home how much Dream-Cloud and Dream-Tifa’s childhoods were stolen and broken down.

He can’t let those dreams twist the way he lives his life now.

:

When Tifa texts him, _don’t wait up for me, not a good day for practise_ , Cloud knows something is wrong. This Tifa never misses her daily practise. She seems to live for them as much as she lives for Denzel and Marlene.

He sucks in a breath. _Can I come anyways?_

The typing bubble pops up and disappears over and over, until finally, he gets an _always_.

:

The thing is, even though he knows he should separate this life and their past, the memories get murky and intertwined. He’s who he is because of the military, being discharged, his Zack and Aerith, kendo. But he’s also who he is because of the dreams, of remembering loss and grief, and this crawling insanity inside his head.

When he looks at this Tifa, he sees the scars Dream-Tifa has left behind, and the woman who grew past those scars, with an anger that she tosses up to protect herself, and he can’t help but be angry too at the world and dreams that stole her smile.

Tifa Lockhart should always be smiling.

:

He finds her in an empty classroom, surrounded by books, her eyes blotchy and puffy.

“…Hi,” she tries for a smile.

He’s instantly by her side, hands on her shoulders, looking her from head to toe. She leans into his touch but avoids his gaze. Old and new habits, mixed together.

“What happened?” His hand twitches for a sword, for an enemy to defeat, but in this world there aren’t monsters like that. The monsters in this world aren’t ones he can slice in half.

“…Just a bad day,” she admits, but nothing more than that.

Okay… Okay… Cloud tries not to freak out. Tifa doesn’t need that right now. He has no idea if he should hug her or not. This was so much easier when he was confessing his love a few weeks ago. Why isn’t it easier?

“I… have bad days too,” he admits, then silently beats himself up for it, because this shouldn’t be about him. It’s about Tifa.

“Yeah?” The edges of her lips twitch up. Okay. Good sign.

He swallows. “Yeah. Bad dreams and all.”

She leans in against his chest. “About the past?”

“About the war actually,” Cloud says slowly, carefully wrapping his arms around her, waiting to see if she’ll scoot away. She doesn’t, melting against him like she did in the nights after Past-Cloud’s geostigma was cured, as if to make sure he’s still there. “You know I was in the military… and that I got discharged… I dream about losing my leg again, and just… lying there, wondering if I’m going to die again.”

Her fingers clench against his uniform. “…I’m sorry.”

It’s not an ‘I’m sorry’ for your loss or for your pain. It’s an ‘I’m sorry’ that grieves with him, that wishes she was there with him, that understands the fear of dying again, and he lets himself curl around her.

“Do you ever dream about Sephiroth?” she asks quietly.

“…Is that what you dreamed about?”

“Something like that.”

“Yeah,” he admits. “Bits and pieces. Nothing too substantial.” He was usually too busy dreaming of _her_. The memories of Sephiroth are so distant to him that they feel like they happened to someone else. It’s Tifa who haunts him, even though she’s here right now.

“It’s stupid, isn’t it? Me, afraid of a ghost from another life… afraid he’ll come back for us…”

“It’s not stupid,” he scowls. “He killed us.”

And if Cloud ever sees a Sephiroth who has remembered himself, and intends to finish he job, Cloud will kill him first.

“You remember how badly he messed me up when I had geostigma… I couldn’t stay around you or the kids, thinking he’d make me kill you. I get it.”

She chuckles into his shirt. “I have no idea how you stayed sane sometimes Cloud.”

“Well… I had you.”

And he killed Sephiroth. That was extremely cathartic. Too bad they can’t kill him again.

Wait.

Idea.

He steps back and hurriedly takes her hand. “I need to show you something.”

“Wha—”

He has no time to enjoy the adorable bewildered look on her face as he shoves all her books into his arms and her bags and then tugs her outside the classroom.

They run and run, as if running will get rid of their ghosts, as if they aren’t two warriors trying to fit into a modern world, until they reach the gym that Cloud trains at.

Tifa continues gaping even as Cloud takes her past the receptionist’s desk and into a private studio upstairs that’s lined with weights and punching bags. The walls are lined with mirrors and stacked with aerobics equipment, but what Cloud wants to see is the gym bag.

Barely noticing the sweat from all the adrenaline, Cloud places Tifa’s books on a nearby chair and begins looking through his pockets for a piece of paper and marker.

“Cloud,” Tifa says between breaths, “Why are we here? If you wanted to spar you should have just said so…”

“Wait,” he mumbles, taking the cap off his marker to start scrawling on his piece of paper. “Okay,” he nods, putting the paper up against the punching bag with some spare tape. “This,” he gestures to the punching bag, “is Sephiroth.”

Indeed, the page he doodled on, has a strange stick figure on it with a giant sword that doesn’t fit the page and absurdly long hair… and a deadpan expression. It looks more like an expressionless emoji than Sephiroth but Cloud never claimed to be a good artist.

Tifa bursts out laughing in a way he hasn’t heard… ever, really. It’s full-out uncontrollable laughter, the type that doesn’t let you breathe after a while, because tears are coming out of your eyes and you’ve never seen or heard anything funnier in your life. It’s the type of laughter that’s freeing and a bit terrifying all at once, because the laugh could never end. It could go on forever if it wanted.

“Cloud,” she says between laughs, “just what am I supposed to do with a Sephiroth that looks like a ditto?”

Huh. Now that he thinks about it, Sephiroth _does_ look like that strange pink blobby creature from pokemon.

“Punch it? Rip it? Tear it? Just… get rid of him.”

She stares at him incredulously.

“You told me before… that you were angry… Sephiroth… took so much away from us. So get rid of him.”

Tifa glances back at the punching bag rather reluctantly, but with a sigh, she drops her bag. She fishes out some punching gloves from the side pocket of her jacket and raises her fists.

“Okay,” Cloud nods, “Now just, ignore the ditto thing, and pretend this is Sephiroth.”

Tifa stares at the stick figure drawing.

Deadpan, the stick figure drawing stares back.

“I… I can’t.”

“What? Why?” Cloud likes to picture Sephiroth’s face when he practises his kendo, makes the sessions where he finally one-ups Zack rather satisfying. “Is it the face?”

“…Yeah it’s the face. It’s too cute.”

“Damn it.” He should have taken up art therapy instead of kendo.

“But thank you, Cloud. This made me feel better.”

He’s sure he’s doing the pouty face that Zack likes to make fun of. “I didn’t do anything though.”

“…You did,” Tifa says quietly. “You did a lot more than you know.”

She walks up to the punching bag and takes off the picture.

Quietly, she folds it up, in half, then another half, until it becomes a paper airplane.

“Here,” she hands it to him, “let’s let it go.”

Ah, he thinks he understands now.

Together, they lift the paper plane up out the window, and let it fly off.

When he looks at her, leaning against the windowsill, the sunlight in her hair, she’s smiling.

Cloud smiles too.


	2. Another Tifa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Thank you so much for reading this and giving it a chance! Honestly this has the potential to spawn some domestic drabbles as extra chapters so if you want to see any extra scenes, let me know! But for now, the last chapter is here now.

When Tifa said she was angry all the time, driven by anger to protect her kids, that was partially a lie.

No, Tifa’s afraid.

So afraid, every day of her second life.

:

Cloud always waits for her while she practises. She’s starting to think that he doesn’t actually get any work done as a janitor (and isn’t that a strange picture? She can’t picture Past-Cloud as a janitor at all. He was always running, searching for himself. Now in this world, he still seems adrift… yet oddly at home. It’s Tifa who’s running away.) He always waits outside the door to walk her home.

Tifa should refuse him but she’s never been able to resist his puppy eyes, in this life or the past.

He looks nice, even in his blue janitor’s uniform. The Old-Cloud used to walk as if he had to carry the world on his shoulders, weighed down by his guilt. This Cloud still looks burdened, but holds himself differently, more lightly. The Old-Cloud was always lost in thoughts of guilt and whatever Hojo did to his head… This Cloud gets lost in thought too, but in a different way that Tifa doesn’t know how to describe.

She feels her heart ache, remembering another Cloud… younger and shyer, lighting up when she asked him to play tag…

No, no, that’s not him anymore.

Tifa nods at him. “Good day at work?”

He shrugs. “Something like that.”

They walk to the janitor’s office so he can put on his coat, the black fabric covering up his blue uniform, and begin strolling out into the street.

Wordlessly, Cloud offers his arm, and with hesitation, Tifa takes it.

She used to refuse before, but she couldn’t stand the hurt in his eyes when she did so. The next time he offered, Tifa took his arm, and felt her breath stop at his brilliant smile.

(Another thing that’s different. This Cloud smiles so much around her, she’ll start walking into walls at this rate, blinded by such smiles.)

“Need help with your bags?” Cloud always asks.

“I’ve got it,” she always says, unwilling to budge more.

Their walks are quiet. Sometimes Cloud fills the silence by telling her about any annoying messes he had to clean up and Tifa will frown at the carelessness of university students. She starts scolding any students who litter and glaring at anyone who leaves a mess in the bathroom. Sometimes Cloud tells her about kendo and Tifa thinks that it suits this new Cloud, a way to use the sword without killing.

“What about you?” Cloud always asks.

“I’m fine,” Tifa always replies.

She’s not. They both know it. Cloud’s walked in on Tifa’s hands shaking by the piano and her make up doesn’t do a good job of hiding her baggy eyes but he doesn’t press her.

He never does.

Even though she has her arm wrapped around his, they’re still so far apart.

:

The first time Tifa remembers her past life, she’s about to be beaten by this life’s father again.

He’s yelling about her eyes, their unnatural colour.

He calls her such terrible things, says that no one will ever love her.

This life’s mother only watches.

This life’s Tifa has never struck back, too afraid, mind completely blank in the face of such terror, that if she does nothing, maybe he’ll stop, maybe he’ll leave her alone. Maybe he’ll love her if she stands still and lets him take out his anger. It’s her fault. He said so himself. If only she didn’t look like this, if only she remembered to cover up the red with her brown contact lenses.

And then there’s a flash of memory, a man with a kind face showing her how to punch, who tells her that no adult should ever raise their fists unless it’s for self-defence, that violence should always be a last resort, that martials arts should be used to protect, and the next thing this Tifa knows is that she punches her father in the face, the same way past-Zangan taught her.

This life’s father falls back, blood dripping down his nose. He’s in shock. She’s in shock too. She never knew she could move like that, so deadly and precise.

Her hands ache and she hates it. They’re for the piano, they’re for building new hopes and dreams, the possibility of going away from here.

Tifa leaves before her father can retaliate, packing all that she can carry into one bag and takes the next train out of town to the city. Her piano teacher, the only adult that cares, Zelda, finances the whole thing. Zelda keeps Tifa hidden from her father, helps Tifa graduate high school through online courses, helps Tifa apply to University before Zelda passes away.

Then Tifa’s alone with a scholarship and this empty house that Zelda left her and an antique piano that creaks as she plays it… and fear.

She’s all alone. Her father could find her at any moment. These strange dreams keep attacking her, taunting her with the deaths of someone precious to her, with a monster stabbing her before she can do anything. She’s nothing like the Tifa she dreams about, the strong past-Tifa who can punch her way out of any problems, who has the strength to smile and help total strangers. This Tifa, the way she is now, can’t look at other people without flinching and wondering if they’ll leave her or betray her.

This Tifa isn’t strong without anyone to take care of.

This Tifa couldn’t even save herself, Past-Tifa’s memories did for her.

Her first year at University for her piano degree, she plays robotically, plagued by dreams, by nightmares of that stupid edgy silver-haired man who kept coming back from the dead like some sort of sick twisted disease. Her grades are barely passable. She considers taking sleeping pills to stop the dreams, but fears she’ll never wake up from them.

Then she meets Marlene and Denzel.

:

“Your eyes…” Cloud says once, on their nightly walks.

Tifa flinches instinctively. “What? Brown too boring for you?”

“No, not at all,” Cloud shakes his head. “I was just going to say that they look the same.”

He doesn’t know, she has to remind herself, while calmly she replies, “Brown and red are not the same colour, Cloud.”

“Not that,” he says, his hand reaching up from her waist to brush her bangs away, like he’s allowed to do so (and he is, he’s the only one Tifa would ever allow to do so, not that she’ll tell him.) “I mean… they still look like you.”

“Tired?”

“No… just… kind.”

Tifa doesn’t answer that.

:

It’s like a moment in a film, a flash of lightning in her heart. Family at first sight. This feeling of _I need to protect them_.

And then anger, so much anger, at Past-Tifa because Past-Tifa couldn’t protect them, but this Tifa will. This is something this Tifa can do that Past-Tifa could not. She’ll do better. She’ll make Denzel and Marlene happy, she’ll make sure they never have to suffer like she did.

She takes them off the street and into Zelda’s (into _her_ ) home.

She doesn’t look back.

:

“Do you… want to meet them?” Tifa always hesitates when she asks, when both of them reach the steps to her apartment, when she inevitably lets go of his arm and he always leans forward, chasing after her touch.

Cloud always looks down and mumbles, “Maybe next time,” before awkwardly waving and rushing away.

Always the same thing. Both of them reaching out at the wrong moments and running away. Always, always, _always._

:

Tifa takes a leave of absence from school to spend time with Denzel and Marlene. They aren’t like past-Denzel or past-Marlene. More subdued and quiet. But Tifa spends every day with them, homeschooling them to catch them up to public school, teaching them the piano, teaching them art. She coaxes new smiles from them, trains them in what she remembers from past-Zangan.

Slowly, they all start to smile more.

Slowly, they become a real family.

:

“Tifa, do you have a boyfriend or something?” Marlene asks while Tifa rushes about making breakfast.

She nearly drops her spatula on the floor. Trying to keep her voice level, Tifa replies, “Why do you ask?”

“We saw you getting dropped off by some weird blond guy for the past week,” Denzel cuts in, pointing his fork at her, “and we demand to meet him!”

“Um… well… it’s complicated. Cloud and I aren’t… well…”

Marlene and Denzel both frown at her.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Tifa settles for that answer instead. It’s not technically a lie. Past Tifa and Past Cloud never labelled their relationship but they were never disloyal to each other either.

“ _Sure, he isn’t_ ,” Denzel mutters, aggressively stabbing his fork into his eggs. Neither Marlene nor Denzel like any men going near Tifa.

“We’re still meeting him,” Marlene decides. “We’ll camp out in the lobby until we see him.”

“Nope, no, you’re not camping out in the lobby,” Tifa crosses her arms. While their neighbourhood is relatively safe, she doesn’t want to take chances. “I’ll bring him up to the apartment tomorrow. Is that fine?”

Both of them glance at each other, silently communicating in that way they always do before they solemnly nod.

“Tell him that he better show up or we won’t approve!”

“Yes, yes,” Tifa nods, “now hurry and eat your eggs.”

She’ll worry about Cloud later.

:

Tifa picks up shifts at a bar owned by two sisters called _Lightning & Thunder_. She uses Past-Tifa’s knowledge of alcohol and food to wow her bosses and gets promoted to the kitchen. Yet again, Past-Tifa’s memories save her.

Éclair and Serah Farron are both incredibly kind to her, always letting her bring leftovers home to feed the kids. These two women become like family, like the big sisters Tifa never had and she’s so envious of their bond. They remind her of Past-Mom and Past-Dad, of Past-Aerith, all her dear loved ones… gone gone gone…

It isn’t until Marlene and Denzel sit her down and beg her to do something that makes her truly happy that Tifa realizes that she’s still living life so angrily, so numbly, that even her kids can tell she’s not fully there.

“You smile like it’s something you’re supposed to do, not because you’re feeling it,” Marlene notes.

“But you two make me happy,” Tifa insists.

“We know,” Denzel says, “But what about when we’re not here?”

“I have my job.”

“You can’t waitress and cook forever!”

“Hey, who is the older and more responsible one here?”

“Tifa, we just want you to be happy. Really happy. We even made a powerpoint!”

The powerpoint presentation has slides dedicated to mental health and personal happiness, things that Tifa has apparently neglected.

“And if _you_ neglect your personal happiness, then _we’ll_ start neglecting our happiness too because we’ll be worried about you and then—”

“Okay, okay, I’ll figure something out and I’ll give university another shot,” Tifa says just to prevent a future disaster from happening.

They glare at her.

“You promise?”

Her heart aches at those words, Past-Tifa’s memories aching for a boy with spikey blond hair who promised to be her hero. This Tifa chases that memory away. There are no heroes in this world.

“I promise,” she says.

So Tifa goes back to University, gets another scholarship. Now that Marlene and Denzel are getting older, she trusts them to take care of themselves when she’s not there. She’s trained them well in martial arts. The piano is the only other thing besides the kids that makes her happy.

When she plays it, she imagines she’s with Zelda. She imagines that everyone is alive.

She tries not to think of the man that Past-Tifa loved.

:

“They want to meet you. Tonight,” Tifa says before Cloud can greet her. “And no, I don’t think they’ll take rain checks. They’re very… protective.”

Cloud blinks at her in dawning terror. “They… they do?! You… told them about me?”

“They’ve been spying on us through the window for the past week. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell them about you.” She knows that for whatever reason, Cloud’s not ready. She’s not sure if she is either. Cloud meeting her siblings is another stab that this is _real_. Cloud is here now. He’s… possibly staying.

(Or leaving. Won’t he leave when he sees that she doesn’t match up to the Tifa of the past?)

He runs a hand through his spiky hair, anxiety rolling off him in waves.

“You… don’t have to. I can make up an excuse…”

“No! It’s okay. I’ll go,” Cloud shakes his head. “I’m ready. I just… Let’s just stop by my place first so I can change. I don’t want them to see me like this.”

Tifa stares at him incredulously. “Like… what?”

He gestures to the uniform he’s wearing and that’s when Tifa gets it.

“Cloud,” her smile peeks out even though she doesn’t want it to, “there’s nothing wrong with being a janitor.”

“Yeah well,” he scowls and looks away, looking so very like a teenager, “it’s not as cool as guy who saved the planet, now is it?”

“Hey,” Tifa touches his arm, looking at him in the eye, “That stuff doesn’t matter. I just want you to be you.”

He sucks in a breath and looks at her with such awe that Tifa can’t remember if Past Cloud ever looked at Past Tifa like that, like she was a miracle and an anchor all at once. She can’t remember the good things about that life, only ever the bad, but _stars_ , she wants to know.

“Alright,” he nods. “Let’s go then.”

:

The day that this Tifa saw Cloud again for the first time, she felt her heart shatter.

She thought she was dreaming, stuck in another nightmare, and any moment, Sephiroth would appear (that _bastard_ ) and skewer her family in right front of her and she wouldn’t be able to reach for Cloud in time—

She runs away from him. She hates that she runs away.

(Past-Tifa would never run away.)

But she can’t look at him. She _can’t_.

:

Strange, how Tifa doesn’t mind holding onto Cloud as they walk but being stuck in an elevator with him makes her nervous. She feels herself growing tenser and tenser the closer they get to her door.

She should turn back, tell Cloud to go home, tell him to stop meeting her after her music practises, to stop walking her home. She should try to forget her past life and live as this Tifa alone.

But she promised she’d try, for him.

She _promised_.

She opens the door.

:

For an entire week, she tries to avoid that music room… The music department at this university is annoyingly small, with a limited amount of practise rooms. No one ever uses the one at the end of the hall, with the out-of-tune piano, that’s why Tifa always gravitates towards it. This old piano that no one wants, that has been through more years than it can bear…

When all the practise rooms are full again, Tifa takes several deep breaths and goes to her usual room. No one’s there. She’s not disappointed at all, seated on familiar creaking wood and hands placed against stained rickety keys.

She plays in a way Past-Tifa never dared too, loud and twisted and without abandon. Her fingers rush over the notes, too fast than what’s written on the sheet music but she doesn’t care. She just has to _feel_ something, even if her fingers are too loud, too fast, too untechnical.

Her breaths come out ragged and strained by the end of the piece, and she presses a silent touch against the piano in apology for playing too wildly against it.

The note on the floor— _your playing is beautiful—_ with the same chicken scratch Past Cloud always turned in for his paperwork, makes Tifa drop her bag.

There was nothing beautiful about her playing today.

:

Marlene and Denzel both glare stonily at Cloud when he walks in. If they were a little older, they would look intimidating, at the age of eight and ten, they look too adorable.

“So,” Denzel nods at him, “ _you’re_ the boyfriend.”

Red, Tifa splutters, “He’s not—”

“Hi,” Cloud blurts out quickly. “I’m Cloud.”

Denzel’s face doesn’t change at all. “We know.”

“I, uh… it’s really nice to see you Denzel, Marlene…” the longing in his voice squeezes at Tifa’s very soul. She should have convinced him to come up for a meeting sooner. Despite the distance she wants to maintain, they were still his kids in their first life too.

“I like him!” Marlene says immediately, latching onto Cloud’s hand, the one that isn’t squeezing the circulation out of Tifa’s. “He talks nicely.”

“ _Marlene!_ ” Denzel hisses at the betrayal.

“Do you have a job? How did you meet Tifa? When did you have your first kiss? Will you build me a dollhouse? Do you know _how_ to build a dollhouse?” The questions come at such a rapid pace that Tifa briefly wonders if Marlene is merely testing him.

“Yes. It’s a long story. Under an air… plane _,_ ” Cloud says lamely, trying to find some modern equivalent for the Highwind, “Sure. I can google it.”

“So you _have_ kissed!” Denzel points at him. “You need to take responsibility!”

“Yeah!” Marlene suddenly joins Denzel, “Responsibility!”

“You can’t break Tifa’s heart!”

“Yeah!”

“You gotta buy her a ring!”

“ _Okay, that’s enough of that, I can see you like him now, why don’t we all play a boardgame instead_ ,” Tifa herds them both towards the living room, tossing an apologetic glance over her shoulder. Cloud only stares at her in amusement.

“Boardgame, boardgame! Cloud has to join in too!”

“Oh, well, I think he has other things to do…”

“No,” Cloud says quickly from behind her, “I’d love to join.”

Tifa stares at him. “It’s… monopoly. It’s… pretty intense. And… not very exciting.”

Smile growing wider (and isn’t that a sight to give her another heart attack?) Cloud says, “Those are two contradicting statements.”

“Adults versus kids!” Denzel slams the monopoly box on the table.

Tifa’s saved from having to answer that teasing smile.

:

“Something’s bothering you,” her boss, Serah Farron, notes on the third week since Tifa first saw Cloud again.

“Nothing’s bothering me,” Tifa nearly throws too much salt into the stew.

“Right… well, if you want to talk, I’m here. We do care about you, Tifa.”

Tifa only smiles a hollow smile, the one that will make people stop asking questions. She’s fine.

:

The kids pummel Team Adults within fifteen minutes of the game. It’s strange, seeing this side of Cloud, so intent on the playing cards and little game pieces, relaxed and free. Tifa could stare at him for hours. He’s so different, yet the same. She wonders if he has trouble differentiating between who Tifa is now versus who she was then too.

By the time both Cloud and Tifa go bankrupt, they decide to let Marlene and Denzel play against each other (even if this causes the most adorable war in the world) so they can talk by the balcony.

“Everything’s so different, isn’t it?” Cloud says, staring at the sea of lights, a sight they rarely got to see when they were in the Midgar Slums. Even with the air pollution in this world, it isn’t nearly as bad as it was on Gaia (not yet.)

“…They’ll grow comfortable with you again,” Tifa says. “Denzel already dropped his guard as soon as you said you do kendo, I don’t think I’ve ever seen his eyes light up so fast. He’ll probably ask you to train him.”

“I mean, if it’s okay with you…” He scratches the back of his neck uncomfortably.

She can’t help but lean in.

“Of course, it is. They were your kids too,” she pauses, clenches and unclenches her fists before she looks up at him. “They still are… even if they don’t know it.”

Cloud’s eyes widen. “I…” his hands open, as if wanting to pull her close. “Thank you,” he says instead of whatever he is holding in. “I needed to hear that. They’re so different now. They still smile the same and tease the same but… I think they’re happier in this world. With you. I’m really glad.”

Tifa averts his gaze, staring back out at the city lights. “It’s strange, isn’t it? Seeing faces that we knew before,” she thinks of the first time she saw Cloud, “seeing how much we’ve changed. Sometimes I don’t know what’s real.”

Hesitantly, Cloud puts her arm around her, and when she doesn’t push him away, he lets himself relax all around her.

“Yeah,” he whispers against her ear, “I know _exactly_ what you mean.”

:

She’s not fine. She wants to see Cloud again, wants to throw her arms around him and never let go. He’s alive, _alive_. But if she holds him, she’s afraid she’ll break apart and rush back into old habits. She’s not the same Tifa anymore and there’s no guarantee that he’s the same Cloud. Maybe once he loved her, but how can he love her now?

Tifa has baggage, so much baggage, always on guard in case her father finds her… in case Sephiroth finds her. If Cloud is here in this world, then what if Sephiroth got reborn here too? What if Sephiroth remembers and hunts her family down and takes everything away from Tifa again?

So she has to be strong. She has to keep a hard heart.

Any more cracks and she’ll break.

:

“Do you… want to meet my friends… and my mom?”

It’s been about two weeks since Cloud met the kids. They’ve taken to dragging Cloud in for a short board game or math help that Tifa _knows_ they don’t need. Kids are like sharks, sensing weakness, and her siblings, knowing that Cloud can’t refuse them anything, take advantage. Cloud hasn’t taught Denzel kendo yet, assigning Denzel a few strength building exercises and stretches to do first, and he hasn’t quite started on Marlene’s dollhouse but he _has_ bought her a new doll so he’s still good in both their books.

Tifa’s stopped worrying about Cloud staying late at her place. She’s offered him the couch a few times, but he always goes home after giving her a few intense looks that she doesn’t want to decipher.

The question makes Tifa miss a step on the sidewalk and it’s only Cloud’s arm around hers that keeps her stable.

“Zack and Aerith?” Tifa knows about them, of course. Cloud told her about them immediately after her first breakdown in front of him. She wonders if this is how Cloud felt when she kept asking him if he wanted to meet Marlene and Denzel. Absolute terror. “I… I don’t know. I don’t mind meeting your mom but…”

She doesn’t think she can bear looking at Aerith and knowing she doesn’t recognize her back.

“Okay,” Cloud says, as if Tifa isn’t about to have another meltdown on the sidewalk, “Is tomorrow okay? For dinner?”

She swallows back her fears. One thing at a time. She can handle meeting Cloud’s mother. Everything will be fine.

“Yeah, absolutely.”

:

It’s the old piano that breaks her, the antique piano in the music room that’s all fixed and tuned. She knows it wasn’t the university that paid for it. Most of the music department’s budget goes into maintaining the grand pianos in the other rooms and their big concerts.

It was Cloud.

Always Cloud.

:

Everything is not fine. Tifa’s turned back and walked around the block at least three times already, unable to set foot on Mrs. Strife’s driveway. She had no idea Cloud lived in the suburbs, _nice_ suburbs with rose bushes growing at front and a cute little blue door. She had no idea that the whole neighbourhood is filled with old people walking around, nice enough to smile and say hi to her.

She came half an hour early and now there’s five minutes until dinner. Her clothes are probably sweaty. She couldn’t decide what to wear so she threw on a blue dress and her red hoodie even though they don’t go together. And she bought a whole basket of fruit to give to them even though she doesn’t know if that’s too much or too little. Is Mrs. Strife allergic to pears now? What if she’s allergic to pears now—

“Are you going to walk past my house again, little lady?” a voice asks as Tifa decides to turn away from the house again.

Tifa freezes, eyes locked with Mrs. Strife, who looks just as she did in her first life, lovely with blond hair and happy wrinkles.

Nibelheim.

The fire.

Her dad, the first one, the _good_ one, dead, gone, and lovely Mrs. Strife who was like a second mom to her too—

Unbidden, tears well up.

Alarmed, Mrs. Strife reaches out to her, “Are you alright? Did I say something to upset you? I’m sorry, I was just trying to make fun with my son’s girl. You _are_ his secret girlfriend, right? Ah, never mind, here take this handkerchief. Do you need me to call someone?”

More tears come. “N-no. I’m… I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s come over me…”

“You have _nothing_ to apologize for dear,” Claudia Strife rubs circles along her back, the way she did when Tifa’s mother died. The Old-Tifa. She needs to separate them.

“Mom? Did Tifa come yet?” A clatter. “Tifa?! What’s wrong?!”

“Don’t just stand there staring, help her inside,” Claudia pulls Tifa close, walking her towards the house.

“Tifa,” Cloud holds her hand, looking so worried and unburdened by the past, she, she…!

Tifa furiously wipes away at her eyes, trying to will the tears away. Her fruit basket lies forgotten on the lawn. The tears keep coming out in ugly blobs and she hisses when her rubbing stings at her eyes.

“Wait just a second, we’ll walk you to the bathroom. You’re going to get your eye infected if you keep rubbing like that,” Claudia lectures, the sound of it, so nostalgic, that Tifa laughs.

“No I just…” Shit, her contacts fell out, “had something in my eyes…”

“Let me see,” Cloud tries to look closer.

“No, wait!”

His mouth falls open.

“Your eyes…”

She flinches but holds his gaze. Cloud wouldn’t hurt her. He’s not like _him_. Not this Cloud or the Past Cloud. But she still tenses, this body remembering how others in this world have reacted to her unnatural eyes…

“They’re red,” he says in awe. “Beautiful…”

Incredulous, Tifa stares at him, before a choked laugh escapes her, making Cloud and Claudia panic of this reaction.

Ah, she shouldn’t have been so afraid after all.

He’s here, seeing her as _her_ , so weak and ugly and yet… and _yet…!_

He loves her just the same.

“I love you,” she says, despite her attempts not to, despite trying to separate her memories and interactions between Past Tifa and Present Tifa.

How silly. They’ve both changed. But they’re both still them. Even if their essences, their souls and hearts, get transposed into a different key of music, they’ll still play the same song. No matter what lives they lead, they’ll come back to each other, they’ll be Cloud and Tifa. They’ll make each other better, even if they can’t be whole quite yet.

Cloud sucks in a breath, suddenly cradling her face between his hands, as he croaks out, “Do you really mean it? Do you really love me?”

Laughing and crying, Tifa says, “Yes.” Because that’s all she can say after all this time.

“Look, you two are very sweet, but can we _please_ get your girlfriend to the bathroom so we can wash her face?”

:

When she invites him and asks him to listen to her play, she pours in everything that’s happened to her, the self-hatred and the anger, the longing and the loss.

She does not expect him to hold her or stroke her hair, she doesn’t expect him to stay when all she’s done in this life is show him her ugly side.

But he does.

He always does.

:

“What changed?”

They’re lying together on the rooftop of his house, staring up at the sky. The city sky never shows as many skies as she’d like, only the brightest shine through in the dark. The dark hides so many lights. She wonders if there are souls living in those other lights, staring right back at them.

She wonders if Barret and the other lived, if they mourn them still like she mourns them.

Her fingers hold tight to Cloud’s.

“I thought I had to be different from my past, I thought that I couldn’t match up to who I was before. But… that’s so meaningless. I have these memories, but I’m still me. Just… different. And you’re still you. Just different.”

He turns his head to the side to face her and she turns too, staring him in the eyes.

“Good different?”

Tifa brings her hand up to brush away his bangs. “Yeah. Good different.”

They hesitate. They always hesitate. Despite these realizations, so many doubts race through them about who they are, who they’ve become, who they _will_ be after all this changes.

But both of them move towards the other, and they kiss tentatively, exploring each other in a way they haven’t since their dreams.

And for once, they both just _be_.

:

“I love you.” The first time this Cloud said those words to this Tifa, she didn’t believe them. How could she? When she’s so different from the first Tifa, the past Tifa?

But she thinks she understands now.

:

“Why the piano?” he asks one day, as Tifa goes through another set of scales, her hands running up and down the keyboard in familiar patterns.

“Why join the military?” she asks back.

They both grimace.

Echoes of themselves, their past selves, mixing with the present. Both of them chasing dreams they can never escape.

“I guess I always wanted to do it… play professionally, I mean. But when Nibelheim was destroyed… I didn’t get to touch a piano again.”

“…That’s why you were so happy when you found that abandoned piano on the street, that’s why you rolled it into the bar…”

She remembers that, in her first life, shortly after geostigma was cured. She had been wandering the streets, trying to figure out how to piece their family back together, how to put _herself_ back together, when she saw this old piano lying in the ally, abandoned and unused. She had taken it instantly.

“Yeah… I didn’t get to do much with it. I think I taught Marlene a few tunes but…”

“Then we died.”

“…Yeah. Then we died.”

Silence.

“I thought…” he hesitates, “that joining the military would be like that for me too… fulfilling that dream of becoming a soldier. But it turns out that wasn’t what I wanted. War isn’t anything like it was in our other life. War here is… there’s no words for it.”

Tifa leans back against him, her hands ghosting against the leg that was destroyed. “And the kendo?”

“The kendo… feels more familiar. More like me.”

“…Good. Then keep doing it.”

:

Tifa throws her contacts away.

Cloud gets a job as a kendo instructor.

Tifa graduates.

Denzel and Marlene eventually go to high school.

Such odd and strangely ordinary things that Tifa and Cloud never got to experience in their first lives, they get to tentatively enjoy now.

Cloud never questions why Tifa sleeps with a bat under the bed and Tifa lets him secure all the entrances of their home with extremely fortified locks.

The first time they sleep together, Tifa kisses his prosthetic leg and all of his scars. The first time they make love, they both cry.

Sephiroth might be reborn in this world. He might not. Tifa’s father might come searching for her. They might die at any time from a car accident or a fire or disease.

But they live.

They live.


	3. Extras: Another Way to Heal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra scenes that happen to Cloud and Tifa after and during the last few scenes of the last chapter :) Thank you so so much for all your support! I hope you enjoy!

** Extras: Another Way to Heal **

**1 – Mother**

She’s still not sure how to act around Cloud’s mother. Sometimes, she stops by Cloud’s house to drop off leftovers that she made on soup days and Cloud isn’t there—staying late at the gym with Zack. But Claudia always greets Tifa with a warm smile, insisting that Tifa stay for tea and cookies. Tifa used to try to refuse, except if she can never refuse Cloud’s pouts, then Claudia’s wide eyes are worse.

“Are you sure, dear?” Claudia always says. “Ah, never mind, I’m sure you’re busy… It’s just hard now that Cloud’s always out of the house…”

“On second thought, I don’t have any plans,” Tifa always acquiesces. “And I love chamomile tea.”

They sit and make awkward small talk (awkward on Tifa’s part… Claudia always seems to be having the time of her life.) Without fail, Claudia usually asks about Marlene and Denzel’s health, she frets over Tifa’s long hours at the bar, she insists on coming to all of Tifa’s concerts. In turn, Tifa learns that Claudia loves to bake (hence her loading a basket of pastries in Tifa’s arms every week for the kids) and sew. Claudia used to work as a seamstress but has retired now. She worries about Cloud constantly, whether he’s sleeping or eating well.

“That boy hardly tells me anything, you know! But since he met you, he’s more of himself again… more like the little boy I raised, but with a harder edge from the war. You make him feel more alive. I hope he does the same for you.”

Tifa never knows what to say to such genuine words. Every time she’s faced with the fact that Cloud apparently loves her, she has the urge to cry.

“…Thank you. But to be honest, I think he does more for me than I do him nowadays…”

“Nonsense!” Claudia chides her, her finger raised in a way that makes Tifa’s heart ache. Mama, the first Mama, used to do that too… “You both do what you need for each other. He needs you, honey. You’re important.”

Something, some emotion she hasn’t felt in a long time, gets stuck in her throat. She has _no words_. She just stares at her tea, too afraid to name this warmth in her chest and—

“Oh honey,” Claudia wraps her arms around her, as if this embrace alone will save her from dark thoughts. “Someone hurt you badly, didn’t they? You don’t have to say anything. Just let it out.”

Mama used to do that too, take one look at Tifa and _know_ that her childish tantrums were a cover up for deeper feelings of insecurity and hurt and _do-you-still-love-me_? Tifa forgot that. How could she forget that?

How embarrassing, how easy it is to cry in Mrs. Strife’s arms. But through it all, Mrs. Strife only rocks her back and forth, stroking her hair.

:

The day of Tifa’s first official concert, Claudia gives her a gorgeous blue dress that flows past her legs, a dress that she could only dream of wearing in a fairy tale.

“Mrs. Strife—”

“Call me Claudia, dear, I’ve said it before—”

“I can’t accept this, it’s too much, it’s—”

“Going to fit perfectly! I had Cloud tell me your measurements.”

“You _made_ this?! Oh, I’m going to kill Cloud.”

“You won’t. You love him too much. Now say ‘thank you’ and try it on!”

“But I _can’t_!” It’s too lovely, this dress. She never dreamed she could wear something like this, something so mature and elegant, like from a dream. Even in her past life, when she wore skirts and cocktail dresses for her Avalanche missions, she never thought she’d be worthy of something so lovely.

Claudia pauses, putting the dress to the side and lifting her hand to stroke Tifa’s cheek. “You can. For me. I’ve always wanted a daughter to dress up, you know.”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

“Okay,” Tifa says. “For you.”

The dress hugs her perfectly.

**2 – Teacher**

Cloud’s never considered himself to be good with kids, to be a figure that others look up to. He’s constantly questioning himself, wondering if he’s doing things right, trying to put himself back together so he can help put Tifa together, that he doesn’t really think about it.

When he goes through the motions of kendo, all of his exercises and stretches, he just zones out, all of him focused on making his movements perfect. He doesn’t have to think about other lives or how to make his next bill. He doesn’t have to think about how it felt to hold a gun and still have to hear his troupe dying around him. He just has to _be_.

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t hesitate to correct other people’s postures during the lesson. He just reacts when he sees a younger kid getting their stance wrong, he helps them readjust their pose and watches carefully until they get it right. He does it again and again, without question, for all the teenagers and kids that stop by the gym, until one day his instructor Mr. Auron pulls him aside and shoves some paperwork in his hands.

“Huh?” Cloud looks down, sees the words for ‘work contract’ and ‘kendo instructor’ and ‘weekly pay’ on the paperwork but unable to comprehend.

“You’d be good at it. You already are,” Mr. Auron tells him. “You’re practically a master already.”

Cloud.exe still doesn’t understand.

Zack, ever nosy when it comes to Cloud, comes over and whoops when he sees the contract. “Is that what I think it is?! Cloud, you should say ‘yes’! This is great!”

His first thought is that he’s no good at kids. His second is that he’s never taught anyone before. This third is just internal screaming.

Mr. Auron just gives Cloud a look.

“Don’t worry, sensei, I got this,” Zack tells Mr. Auron. “Cloud! Whatever you’re thinking right now, it’s wrong. You _are_ capable of doing this. Me and Mr. Auron have been watching you over the past couple of months. You practically teach half the classes that come in here anyways. You’re great with the kids, super patient, and you seem happier when you’re. What do you say?”

“I…” Can he really do this? Him? A wannabe failed SOLDIER? The guy who went into the army only to be sent home with a missing leg?

But he thinks of the thankful smiles on the faces of those he’s helped at the gym. He thinks of teaching Denzel one day. He thinks of how proud Tifa would be, how proud Ma would be.

He thinks of how he just _fits_ into this workplace, with Zack and Mr. Auron, the way he hasn’t fit in a long time.

“I’ll do it,” he says.

Over the years, as he collects more and more thank you cards from various students, he begins sticking them to the wall of his bedroom. Whenever he or Tifa have bad days, he just looks at the wall of thank you cards, and he doesn’t regret a thing.

**3 – Sister**

Meeting this world’s Aerith isn’t planned, it just _happens_. Perhaps there are just some meetings that are meant to be, no matter how much she tries to stop them. Perhaps certain people are always meant to be intertwined into our lives.

Tifa’s out of class early and she’s not in the mood to do any practising. Since Cloud started working at the gym, he only does limited morning shifts at her university. She misses walking home with him after her classes or practises, savouring in the feeling of walking on the same plane, in the same place again.

The decision is impulsive, a desire to give back to Cloud what he always offers her. She texts Sereh and Éclair to pick up and babysit Marlene and Denzel. She decides to go visit Cloud herself.

The problem with that is that Tifa knows the name of Cloud’s workplace… but there are so many gyms with the same name that she’s not sure which one he actually works at.

Frowning, she walks circles around different blocks. After walking into two gyms to ask for her Cloud’s name, with the receptionist giving her blank looks, Tifa’s ready to give up and just go back home. She’ll have to needle Cloud about _where_ he specifically works. She wanted so badly to surprise him too… What a terrible romantic partner she is…

She’s so distracted that she doesn’t realize that she’s about to crash into a stranger, until her side hits the ground and all her music books spill out of her bag. Distracted by the pain, how her elbow and head stings, Tifa doesn’t notice the hand in front of her face until her vision clears.

Her breathing stops.

Aerith. Not her Aerith, of course, but this world’s Aerith, wearing a cute white sundress and pink leather jacket without sleeves. Her hair’s shorter than her Aerith’s ever was, cut just past her shoulders, and the ribbon that Tifa’s always associated with her Aerith is tied around this Aerith’s waist.

She looks down at Tifa in concern, her lips moving, asking if Tifa’s okay—

“It’s you,” Tifa breaths, “You’re real.”

Then she passes out to Aerith’s panicked face.

:

Waking up in a hospital room, Tifa wakes up to a relieved Aerith’s face. This Aerith is a whirlwind, perhaps more enthusiastic than her Aerith ever was. She fetches Tifa water and food, fluffs her pillow. She shows her worry so genuinely and honestly that even the sound of her voice makes Tifa tear up.

“Oh, no, don’t cry! You’re too pretty to cry. Please don’t cry! I called your emergency contacts, they’ll be coming soon! And my boyfriend will stop by with some cheering package for you. It’ll be okay!”

Tifa tries to smile. How can she not when this Aerith is being so genuine? When this Aerith has this sparkle in her eye that her own Aerith had not had while she was alive, a sparkle that comes when she says Zack’s name.

“…Thank you,” Tifa ends up saying, so happy and grateful that in this world, Aerith and Zack have their happy ending. “You didn’t have to help me.”

This world’s Aerith freezes then frowns. “What are you talking about? Of course, I had to help you. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t? And it was my fault you fell too…”

A smile itches onto Tifa’s face. She missed this. She missed this _so much_ —

“What? What’s the matter? Did I say something wrong? Please don’t cry again—”

“Sorry, it’s just… you remind me of someone… someone I lost. A sister.”

This world’s Aerith goes still. Then she tentatively sits by Tifa’s bedside and murmurs, “I’m sorry. I always wanted a sister…”

Tifa really shouldn’t. This Aerith isn’t hers. But she’s so warm and bright, and Tifa knows that she’ll run into Aerith eventually when she meets Cloud’s friends.

Slowly, she reaches out for Aerith’s hand. “I… Since you helped me… I… I’d be honoured if we could be like sisters too.”

Aerith’s eyes go wide. For a moment, Tifa worries that she offended her. Then Aerith’s arms wrap around Tifa’s shoulders and Tifa feels another broken piece of her shift back into place.

“Yes! Of course! We’re going to be best friends, the best of soul sisters, I just _know_ it!”

Zack and Cloud burst into Aerith braiding Tifa’s hair, both of them singing the Spice Girls very badly.

Tifa wonders if her Aerith is watching from her original world. Tifa wonders if her Aerith would be happy with this.

(She would.)

**4 – Children**

“Cloud! Cloud!” he hears when he picks up his blaring phone at five o’clock in the morning.

“Mmmf…?” his sleepy brain answers for him.

“Cloud, you have to come over, quick! Tifa’s burning up and she’s unconscious and we don’t know what to do!” Marlene cries out.

He shoots up, rushing out of Ma’s house wearing one boot and one slipper, a jacket over his white shirt and boxers, a first aid kit, and the messiest hair known to humanity. Needless to say, when he offers to pay one hundred dollars to the uber that will get him to Tifa’s place the fastest, he gets there within five minutes.

Not bothering with the elevator, Cloud bolts up the steps. He fiddles with his keys, especially the one that Tifa gave him months ago (“Because you’re part of the family,” she had blushed) until he finally jams it into the doorknob.

Denzel and Marlene whip open the door before he can fully turn the knob, both wearing tiny aprons and looking as frazzled as Cloud feels.

“Good, you’re here!” They both yank him inside the apartment, quickly shutting the door.

Within the apartment Cloud can see a mess starting to brew. The kitchen is disorganized with all the plates and cans of chicken noodle soup pulled out. Thankfully the stove hasn’t been turned on, Denzel and Marlene had enough sense to wait for him. He can see blankets piled up on a form on the sofa…

“Tifa!” he rushes over to her, feels her forehead and nearly pulls his hand away. She’s burning up. Feverish.

“Is she going to be okay?!” Marlene rocks back and forth on her heels. Denzel clenches his fists, looking stony.

“She has a fever,” Cloud tells them. “We need to change her out of her clothes. Marlene, can you help me? Denzel, go get some cool towels. We don’t need this many blankets yet.”

The kids normally tease him but not today. They dart to their designated jobs with dedication. Together, they bring Tifa’s temperature down a few degrees and then Cloud calls in sick to work. He hunts through Tifa’s kitchen drawers for ingredients for herbal tea and supervises Denzel as he makes soup. Marlene stays by Tifa’s side.

The three of them don’t leave Tifa after coaxing her to eat, circulating in breaks when needed. Cloud tries to keep the kids entertained by reading them some of Tifa’s novels but eventually they all fall into a deep silence, watching Tifa toss and turn with worries.

“…I’m glad you came, Cloud,” Marlene whispers, laying her head against his knee. “You’re a good brother.”

He feels his heart stop.

Denzel, more shy and hesitant, also sits closer and nods. “We never knew who to call before when Tifa got sick. But this time, we called you.”

He tries not to show them his tears. But Marlene and Denzel have never thought of him as weak, not even when he failed them. They only curl up by his side and Tifa’s and sleep.

This time, Cloud tightens his arms around his family, he’ll be a part of their lives.

**5 – Graduate**

Tifa stares out into the sea of parents and siblings, significant others and friends. Cameras and phones sparkle in the audience, snapping photos as each graduate walks across the stage.

Hands curled together, wearing the dress Claudia gave her, with her graduation gown on top, Tifa tries not to panic.

She never got to go to college or university in her first life. She never got to go to high school either, Nibelheim didn’t have an equivalent. She had Master Zangan, but there was no ceremony when she finished her studies… only his last lesson hidden in her piano, his last words to her.

She can’t walk across that stage… she can’t!

But then she hears her name being called, and her eyes flash up to the front row of the audience. There, Cloud sits with Claudia, Marlene, and Denzel. Behind them, Aerith and Zack wink at her, and even Serah and Éclair have shown up too.

Her family.

Her friends.

She straightens her back. She takes a deep breath.

And Tifa Lockhart walks across the stage.

**6 – Photographer**

“Have you seen this gorgeous photo of my girlfriend at this café yet?” Zack often asked, early into their friendship.

“Zack, I literally see your girlfriend every time she comes to pick you up after kendo.”

“That’s a yes!”

Cloud had not seen the point of Zack showing him yet another selfie of Aerith at yet another café, eating yet another pancake.

But now Cloud has Tifa.

The first time Tifa let him watch her play the piano, Cloud remembers wanting to immortalize that moment, wanting to pull out his phone and capture that moment on camera, so he can stare at it always.

It’s not until they’re dating that Cloud asks her if they can take photos together. She always blushes so shyly but agrees, she rarely denies him anything. It gets to the point where Tifa sighs fondly and tells him that he can take photos of her whenever he wants.

“I trust you,” she kisses him on the cheek.

And Cloud’s inner photographer was unleashed.

He takes photos of Tifa’s concerts, of their kids, of Zack at work. He begins searching up tutorials and studying other photography techniques. Zack teases Cloud for becoming a pseudo-professional photographer, anal about composition and details.

Cloud… has fun. He finally has something in this world that has nothing to do with his first life. He has photos to show him that every moment in this second life, every bit of happiness is _real_ and _true_.

He hangs up Tifa’s graduation photo in her living room, where she smiles like she’s charging into battle, into a new future. Next to that photo, is a group shot of everyone who showed up at her graduation, so wonderfully alive.

**7 – Dear Friends**

“You seem happier lately,” Serah notes when Tifa finishes one of her last shifts. “I’m glad.”

Washing up the last of the dishes, Tifa blushes. “Yeah… I guess I am.” It’s strange, being able to say that now. “I’m happy.”

Éclair walks in, holding a bag of potatoes for tomorrow’s soup. “Good. Because if you weren’t, Serah and I would have had to kill your boyfriend.”

“Éclair no!”

With a straight face, she response, “It’s only murder if you turn me in. Which you won’t. Because I’m your friend.”

Then she walks out to grab more of their supplies.

Tifa gapes at her. Serah grins. “What? We love you. And even when you become a famous pianist, we’ll keep checking up on you and the kids. You’re stuck with us. For life.”

She throws her arms around Serah, and later around Éclair when she walks back into the room.

In this life, Tifa’s so glad she met them.

**8 – Lover**

Cloud told Tifa about his prosthetic leg when they started dating. She had passed in mid-walk, and held his hand so tight.

“Does it still hurt?” she had asked, and the look in her eyes made it impossible to lie.

“Sometimes,” he had admitted.

All Tifa did then was take several harsh breaths. Her hands shook as she threw her arms around him. Her body trembled as they stayed there, embracing, for how ever long the night would let them.

Tonight, when they lie in bed together, when their kisses get too heated and Tifa asks him if this is okay, he freezes.

She’s never really seen it, his prosthetic. What if she thinks its ugly, what if she flinches away, what if, what if—

But Tifa smooths away his trembles. She always did that, in their past life. Even in this life, she’s still saving him, despite her claiming otherwise.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “We don’t have to go any further. I’ll wait.”

It’s those words that spur him further, that has him guiding her hand to where the prosthetic meets flesh, that has Tifa staring at his prosthetic with an unreadable expression, before she leans down to kiss where flesh has scarred up, where the prosthetic has become a part of him.

“I love you,” she whispers, kissing that scar again and again. “I love all of you.”

In this life, how can he not fall in love for a third time, right there and then? How can he not kiss her with the ferocity of a man who’s found paradise?

They make love and they fall together, fitting together perfectly.

**9 – Father**

Tifa’s name gets a small following on the internet following her recordings with various orchestras. She’s not as famous as some of the top pianists in the world, but she’s happy with what work she gets. After a Chopin concert with her orchestra, she exits the theater and sees a figure that makes her heart stop.

He stands there, looking uncomfortable in a suit with his big arms, shuffling back and forth with a bouquet of sunflowers. When he finally sees her, his face brightens with recognition before it twists into a blank expression of waiting and longing.

“…Barret?” his name escapes her lips before she can stop herself, before she can be disappointed when he doesn’t know her.

But then his shoulders sag in relief and he opens his arms. “Teef!” he cries out in joy.

Her mouth falls open. And then she’s running into his arms, and he’s spinning her around. The only man she could ever consider a good father, alive and well.

“I can’t believe you’re real, I can’t believe you found me,” she whispers.

“ _You_ found me,” Barret grins. “I heard your piano, and I knew it was you. Look at you, all grown up again, and famous.”

She flushes under the praise. “Have you found anyone else? Anyone who remembers?”

“I work with Cid and Yuffie… they don’t remember anything. No Vincent and Nanaki yet. I think Reeve’s a CEO somewhere so he’s hard to reach. You’re the first one I met who remembers. And you?”

“Marlene, Denzel, Aerith, and Cloud,” Tifa says quickly. “Only Cloud remembers.”

Barret’s eyes get teary. “Marlene? My little Marlene is here?”

“Yes,” Tifa says as he sets her down. “Come with me, you can see her. They were in the audience for my show…”

But Barret doesn’t move.

“Does she… doesn’t she have another family now? Will she even like me? I… I won’t be her Papa anymore…”

Seeing Barret so fragile makes Tifa want to cry.

She faces him, makes him look her in the eye and says, “Marlene, Denzel, and I don’t have any parents. But we’d be so happy to consider you one. There’s not a world out there where we don’t love you. So come with me, come meet them again.”

Eyes shining, Barret can only say yes.

**10 – Forever**

Cloud tries to stop his palms from getting all clammy as he guides Tifa into the compartment of the Ferris Wheel. Her eyes are sparkling as the Ferris Wheel begins to ascend, as they get a view of the amusement park, lit up in lights, and the brightest stars fighting to be seen in the night.

“This is beautiful, Cloud. Thanks for taking me,” Tifa whispers, hands still pressed up against the glass. She’s glowing.

Cloud moves carefully, so the compartment won’t shake, onto one knee.

Tifa freezes, the lights and the stars reflected in her eyes.

“What are you—”

“A long time ago,” Cloud starts, “in another life, you and I sat in a compartment like this… at the Golden Saucer. You tried to tell me something… and you didn’t get the chance. You said it was hard to be childhood friends sometimes, that there were some things you didn’t have the courage to say. I was too wrapped up in my own head, in my own demons, to understand. But I do now. And I’m saying it, because you’re not just a childhood friend to me, Tifa, you’re my partner. And I want us to be tied together forever. So please…” he opens the little box from his pocket, “be my Tifa, and I’ll be your Cloud.”

Her breaths come out, wheezy and ragged. Cloud almost calls it out, just to get Tifa an inhaler, when she kisses him firmly on the lips, their compartment shaking dangerously.

“Of course, I’ll marry you,” she whispers.

The fireworks take that moment to light up the sky.

:

In another world, an emptier one without their loved ones, Aerith and Zack watch from the lifestream, as their friends live happier lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus & Omake:
> 
> Sephiroth rises from the darkness, crawling out of the ground in a strange new world somewhat similar to Gaia but without a with of lifestream or magic in the air. His thoughts are filled with revenge on the Ancient and her lover who destroyed him. He’ll track down everyone that the Ancient loved, and kill them, rip them apart. In fact, he spots Cloud Strife and Tifa Lockhart in the distance, holding hands and laughing as if they have a right to be happy, to forget Sephiroth and all the pain he inflicts. 
> 
> He steps forward. He has no magic in this world but he’ll improvise how he’ll torture them.
> 
> But just as he takes that step, another rip happens in the universe, and a crowd of faceless readers comes out, their leader storming up to Sephiroth to strangle him with their bear hands.
> 
> Sephiroth tries to fight back but he finds he cannot breathe in the face of righteous fury as he’s brutally murdered by all of these readers.
> 
> The end. Totally canon.
> 
> Dedicated to LinguisticSwordsman who's comment made me laugh

**Author's Note:**

> My cover art for this fanfiction is [here](https://youlighttheskyart.tumblr.com/post/618010567218724864/cover-art-for-my-fanfiction-another-key-summary)
> 
> FANART Available by the talented saintlapinette on tumblr [here](https://youlighttheskyart.tumblr.com/post/618139848527773696/saintlapinette-drew-fan-art-for-the-fic-another)
> 
> Always happy to get prompts at my [twitter](https://twitter.com/youlightthesky1), my [writing tumblr](http://youlighttheskyfanfiction.tumblr.com/), or my [art tumblr](https://youlighttheskyart.tumblr.com/) I also have a [ pillowfort ](https://www.pillowfort.social/youlighttheskyfanfiction) now where I will put more reflections on my teaching and writing. Aka, what my writing tumblr should have been ahaha


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